-Less threatening US weather outlook weighs on prices
-CFTC data shows massive fund short-covering in corn
-Brazilian safrinha corn harvest remains slightly ahead of average
-Russian wheat prices higher/crop ideas bumped lower
Good weekend rains, prospects for a solid rain event for much of the corn belt over the next several days and a less threatening extended outlook weighed on the grain markets overnight. Friday’s CFTC data showed massive fund short-covering in corn, reducing the perceived potential impact additional fund buying if weather forecasts take a turn for the worse again. President Trump’s comments on Friday of our “worsening relations with China†and no Phase Two trade talks likely any time soon continue to loom over the market, as well. Corn and soybean crop conditions are expected to decline 1-2% in g/e in
this afternoon’s update following last week’s heat, though.
 According to Brazilian consultant Arc Mercosul, the safrinha corn crop is 35% harvested, ahead of 31% average, but remaining well below last year’s historically fast 49%.
ï‚· The continued very good Indian monsoon has allowed for a massive increase in planting activity vs this time last year, with 13.9 million hectares (34.3 million acres) of oilseeds already planted vs 7.5 million hectares (18.5 mil acres) at this time last year.
 Iraq’s trade ministry said they have already sourced 4.5 MMT of local wheat this year, allowing them to be self-sufficient for the country’s food rationing program for the 2020/21 marketing year. In March, the government said they were expecting to need to import around 1 MMT of wheat this year for the program. The ag ministry said this year’s wheat crop is expected to reach 6.0 MMT, solidly larger than the USDA’s current ideas of 4.8 MMT, while the USDA is estimating Iraq to import 2.9 MMT of wheat in total this year vs 2.3 MMT last year.
 USDA made a revision to last Thursday’s corn export sales data due to the improper initial reporting of sales to China for the week being for old crop, while they should have been reported as being for new crop. The 407k tonnes (16.0 mil bu) in sales to China reported as being for 2019/20 were actually for 2020/21. Accordingly, the revised data now shows total old crop commitments at 1.674 billion bushels, with last week’s net sales actually being only 7.6 million bushels vs 23.6 million originally reported, while new crop sales were 32.1 million bushels instead of 16.1 million originally reported.
ï‚· Iran tendered for 200k tonnes each of corn, SBM and feed barley for Aug-Sept shipment periods. Offers are due by Wednesday.
ï‚· Russian 12.5% protein Black Sea wheat export prices were up $4.50-$8.00/tonne last week to $202-$205.00/tonne fob.
 IKAR lowered their estimate of the Russian wheat crop to 76.5 MMT from 78.0 MMT previously, which is in line with the USDA’s latest estimate and compares to last year’s 73.6 MMT.
 Friday’s CFTC Disaggregated COT data for futures/options combined for the week ended 7/07/20 showed fund being net buyers of 59.9k contracts in corn to reduce their net short to 141.7k, their smallest net short since mid-April. Over the last two weeks, funds were net buyers of 136k contracts in
corn, with their current net short less than half of what it was five weeks ago at 297k contracts. Funds were estimated to be sizable net sellers in corn last Friday, though, of 35k contracts, putting them as net sellers across the three days since the COT data’s “as of†date last Tuesday. Funds were net buyers of 31.4k contracts in soybeans for the week according to Friday’s COT data, pushing their net long to 99.2k contracts, impressively their largest soybean net long since May 2018. Funds were also net buyers of 30.6k contracts in SBM in short-covering activity, with their net short down to only 21.9k contracts, and were also net buyers of 18.6k contracts in SBO to move to net long of 19.4k. Fund activity in the wheat markets was much more
muted being net buyers of 5.3k contracts in CBOT (net short 33.5k) and 4.0k in KCBT (net short 32.7k), while being minor net sellers in MPLS of 0.4k contracts (net short 18.1k).
Weather
Rains of .30-.80, with areas of 1â€+ fell across southern MN, the NE ½ of IA, southern WI, the NE 2/3 of IL, and into most of MI, IN and OH. Areas missing rains accounted for less than 25 of the belt. A cold front will work through the region Tuesday, Wednesday and finish up in the far east early Thursday. The models are in decent agreement, with the European being a bit drier than the GFS. Overall, expectations are for .50-1†in most of MN, the eastern 2/3 of IA, most of WI, MI, IL, the northern ½ of IN and northeast corner of OH. The models differ on the 6-10 day outlook with the GFS continuing to be
wetter than the European, with totals of .40-1†in northern IA, far southern MN and southern WI, with .50-1†in most of MI, IL, IN and OH. The European sees rains of .30-.80â€, isolated to 1â€, to fall in most areas north of line around 100 miles to the south of I-80, with little in the way of rains elsewhere. The GFS is the favored idea at this time. The 111-16 day outlook sees a fairly west to east flow to produce close to average rainfall and slightly above average temps to the Midwest. Temps will run above average in MO and the southern ½ of IL, IN and OH, with average temps elsewhere in the next 5 days. Temp in the 6-10 day look to run above average, although temps above 95 look to be very sparse.